Personal branding, a key driver in women-led community marketplaces
As more women micro-entrepreneurs set up their #SHOPOnSHEROES, building trust in creative ways, is helping them scale their businesses.
According to a recent report by Bain & Company, peers and communities will play a much larger role in influencing purchase decisions for future generations of online consumers.
We’re already seeing this trend playing out beautifully in our community marketplace SHOPOnSHEROES, where trust is the biggest enabler.
“A community is a group of people who are connected by a common purpose or interest. A community marketplace is where buyers and sellers are connected via content or conversations and social capital of buyers and sellers is reference-able”
~ Sairee Chahal, Founder-CEO, SHEROES
Social meets commerce
Within just weeks of launching SHOPOnSHEROES, over 2000 shops were set up by women. Here’s a peek at a few SHOPs that were set up in recent weeks.
Through the #SHOPOnSHEROES opportunity, women micro-entrepreneurs are able to give a voice and identity to their business, and enable hassle-free transactions for their customers.
Trust-led commerce
Small business owners, online resellers, and creative entrepreneurs can now launch their online shops on SHEROES in less than 60 seconds with no investment. In fact, setting up a SHOP on the SHEROES platform is a seamless experience, and probably the easiest part.
The more challenging bit is the journey to building trust, because trust-let commerce is central to any community marketplace.
As more and more first-time entrepreneurs set up their SHOPS, early investments in nurturing a learning ecosystem, alongside, are paying dividends for shop owners, in the form of sales, visibility and growth of their identity as successful business women.
Community learning ecosystem
Regular masterclasses, expert sessions and training webinars hosted by experts every week, are giving SHOP owners the tools to differentiate their businesses, and scale them up.
SHEROES Champion Rupa Patil, a business coach, mentor and a Certified Mastermind Professional, is a keen advocate of personal branding and posts s useful nuggets in the community everyday.
Rupa recently hosted a phenomenal masterclass for our community of shop owners, beautifully connecting the dots between trust, credibility, identity and personal branding. Several of the shop owners in attendance are first-time internet users and first-time entrepreneurs, and were hearing about the potential impact of personal branding for the first time.
For these Shop owners, building their digital footprint is a fresh journey, and learning about personal branding, early on, can be a transformative experience.
It directly impacts their ability to instill trust in customers. It helps them express various parts of their identity, and develop a voice for themselves and their businesses.
Personal branding activities also help them establish their credibility as experts, and gain recognition as the go-to entrepreneur for, say, vegan beauty products and makeup, educational STEAM toys for kids or superfoods- based snacks.
This is especially important in a world where consumers seek specific products relevant that are relevant to their unique lifestyle needs. Trust is a core factor that makes them choose one product versus another.
Power of community marketplaces
Rupa is a firm believer in the transformative power of trust-led commerce. She also touches upon the democratising aspect of community marketplaces.
“While traditional ecommerce is great, the truth is, it’s restricted to a privileged few. But SHOP ON SHEROES is one of the most heart-centered initiatives I’ve seen, especially for the hard-working micro-entrepreneurs. SHEROES have done almost ALL the heavy lifting for them: right from technology, payment gateway, safe communication to the highly valuable business education and continuous support to the shop owners on SHEROES.”
~ Rupa Patil
SHOP Owners from every walk of life
Zanhya from Berhampur, owner of the Self-Cottage is only 19-years old. Fueled by her own struggles with body image issues, she has beautifully curated a haven for women consumers via her online SHOP, which offers natural skincare and hair care, and organic, chemical-free menstrual wellness products. She is personally an advocate of self-care for women, and is very active in the beauty and health communities.
Check out Zanhya’s SHOP Self-Care Cottage here
Shivani Baranwal from Gorakhpur, on the other hand launched her SHOP at age 61, with a little help from her daughter Shipra. Shivani creates and sells the most adorable handknitted baby wear and toys. Her behind-the-scenes creator videos generate much interest in the community. She’s also passionate about cooking.
Check out Shivani’s SHOP SewSaw Handmade here
The diversity of women entrepreneurs launching their #SHOPOnSHEROES is growing everyday, but there are common threads running among this tribe.
Rupa articulates it beautifully as she sums up,” It’s always an honour to serve the highly committed women entrepreneurs of SHEROES. Reason being, they are always curious to learn, grow and support each other. KUDOS to SHEROES management team for empowering these women in every possible way.”
We invite more women to launch their SHOPS on SHEROES, and more consumers to support women-led businesses!
SHEROES, the women-only social network is a safe, constructive, high-empathy, high-trust online ecosystem for women to engage and chase dreams. It offers communities, a chat-based counsellng helpline, champions, resources, opportunities, credit opportunities and a community marketplace. It is accessible via Sheroes.com and the SHEROES app
